Six Years Later
‘Daddy?’ Lola looks up from her homework, her little nose wrinkled. ‘What’s a billionaire?’
‘It’s someone with more money than they need, bug,’ Jax murmurs, looking over at her from where he’s standing by the stove. He’s making us dinner, which makes him infinitely more attractive to me.
What? I’m five months pregnant with our third baby girl. Food is all I think about these days. Luckily for me, my husband is a hell of a cook. Most nights, he makes dinner for us while I help Lola with her homework and Liah scribbles in a coloring book at the kitchen table.
Ruby usually scavenges around the stove, looking for crumbs. I pretend not to see Jax intentionally dropping things for her. Right now, she’s content with the giant bone he brought her. It’s bigger than her entire body, but she’s happily attacking it like a savage.
Dinnertime is one of my favorite parts of the day. Jax is a busy man, running from meeting to meeting to property to property. But when he’s in town, he always makes sure he’s home for dinner.
His trips out of town have slowed down over the last few years. I think he got tired of being away from us so much. Unless we can travel with him, his trips are always abbreviated. He goes, does what he needs to do, and then flies home. Even if it means he doesn’t get home until the middle of the night. He says he can’t sleep without me.
I know the feeling. Falling asleep in his arms every night is as blissful to me now as it was six years ago. I love him more now than I did then, which doesn’t seem possible to me. But he keeps finding ways to make me fall for him a little more every day.
He spoils me and the girls. We never want for anything. I’ve told him a million times that he spends too much money on us, but he never listens. He says he can do what he wants. Then he usually makes love to me until I forget what we were even talking about in the first place.
More than that though, he spoils us with love and attention.
When I was pregnant with Lola, he was really anxious about being a dad. He was so afraid he’d mess it up or fail her or me in some way. That ended the day she was born five years ago. Jax fell in love with his baby girl as soon as the nurse placed her in his arms. She barely left them the first few weeks. I had to fight him for my turn…and I was the one breastfeeding! If she made the slightest sound, he was right there to pick her up.
He’s wrapped around her little finger and everyone knows it. No one messes with his girls without him throwing a fit. Last year, a little boy cut a piece of Lola’s hair in preschool because she wouldn’t give him the crayon she was using. I thought Jax was going to lose his mind. He wanted to pull her out of preschool and hire a tutor for her.
Lola did not take the news well. She cried her little eyes out. Jax was beside himself. Eventually, he promised not to pull her out of preschool. The waterworks ended. Peace was restored in the household. It didn’t calm him down any at all when it comes to her and Liah.
He’s still a crazy pants daddy on top of being a bossy pants man. We love him anyway. He is so damn good to us. It’s hard to remember a time when he wasn’t mine because it feels like we’ve had this effortless, fairytale love forever. Things were a little rough in the beginning.
His board was, as expected, suspicious of me. They pushed him to get me to sign a pre-nup. Eventually, he erupted and told the entire board that they could get out if they had a problem with our relationship but that I wouldn’t be signing a damn thing. And that, if something ever happened to him, they would be damn lucky to have me in his place. He also reminded them that his father left him in charge because he didn’t trust them to have the best interests of the company at heart.
They didn’t like hearing that, but it changed the way they treat him. They no longer question every decision he makes. They’ve begrudgingly accepted that he’s the best thing to ever happen to Concord. Some of them are more friendly with him now. The others keep their complaints to themselves.
Daniel does a good job making sure everyone plays nice with Jax. He knows when trouble is brewing long before the first murmurs even start. He and Jax work together to squash problems before they get far. It’s worked out well. Jax has a lot of respect for Daniel and vice versa. He’s almost family now. The kids call him Uncle Daniel.
Gold diggers still try to flirt with Jax. It makes him angrier than it does me. He’s sent more than one woman rushing away in tears over the years, but they still keep trying. It makes him completely crazy. It’s honestly a little amusing to me. He only has eyes for me, and I have never once doubted that. My man worships me, and he doesn’t care who knows it.
‘Daddy?’ Lola asks again.
‘Yes, bug?’ Jax says, making me smile. I swear, our daughter wakes up asking questions in the morning and she falls asleep asking them at night. She is so curious about everything! She’s only in kindergarten but she’s already doing so well. She’s reading and writing. She can do basic math. Her teacher says she’s a model student.
She looks just like Jax with his mocha eyes and brown hair. Liah favors me. She’s got the palest blonde hair and blue eyes. Her little dimples are all Jax. So is her attitude. She’s only two and a half, but she is a bossy little thing! If she doesn’t like something, she is quick to let us know. Otherwise, she doesn’t talk much. When her world is going according to her plan, she’s happy as a clam. But just let something get in her way. She uses that voice then.
Her first word was no. I think it’s still her favorite word. She certainly says it to me often enough. Not Jax though. She’ll do whatever he wants her to do without a single complaint. Most of the time, he gets her dressed in the mornings. Otherwise, I spend an hour chasing her naked little self through the house, trying to get her clothes on her.
‘Are you a billionaire?’
‘Where’d you hear that?’ Jax asks, brows furrowed as he turns to look at her daughter.
‘Maximus said that you’re a billionaire,’ Lola says, tilting her head to the side to look at him. ‘He said that you own eberything.’
Jax looks at me, his brows raised.
I shrug. He can explain this one to her. Lola and Liah don’t know a lot about money or status or anything like that. They know we live in a big house and that we have fast cars. But they’re so little. I don’t think they really understand how privileged they are.
We try to teach them not to expect things to be given to them, and make sure they know that other people aren’t as fortunate. We don’t want them to grow up expecting the world to just hand them things. Jax didn’t grow up that way and neither did I. We want our girls to be compassionate, giving, and grateful. It’s important to us that they don’t live in a bubble, surrounded only by the children of other billionaires. That’s why Lola is in public school.
‘We do have a lot of money,’ Jax says carefully. ‘But that’s not what is most important about us, Lola. Family is more important. People are more important.’
‘I know.’ She purses her little lips at him. ‘Is a billion more than a million?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh.’ She processes that for a minute, trying to figure out where it fits with what she knows about the world. She’s smart, but she’s also so innocent. We’re so careful about exposing her and Liah to all the bad things that happen in the world. We want them to be little girls for as long as possible. ‘If we hab so much money, how come we don’t gibe it away, daddy?’
Jax looks at me again.
‘Who do you want to give it to, sweetheart?’ I ask her. Jax already donates millions to different causes that matter. He’s incredibly generous and giving.
‘I don’t know.’ She shrugs her little shoulders. ‘Lots of people don’t hab much money. We should gibe them some. I bet it would make them happy.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ Jax says, crossing the kitchen to squat beside her chair. He gives her a sweet smile. ‘Me and mommy will take you this weekend to see some of the places that we help every year. You can help decide which ones we help a little more this year.’
‘Really?’ Her mocha eyes grow big. ‘I get to gibe money to people?’
‘Well, not exactly,’ he says, reaching out to tap her on the nose. ‘We’ll give it to a business that will use it to help people. Sometimes, they help them get medicine when they’re sick, or clothes when they need new ones, or find them safe places to sleep. Sometimes, they make sure people have food. They do lots of different things to help people.’
‘Cool,’ Lola whispers, staring at him in awe.
‘You’re a good girl, bug.’
‘I help too,’ Liah says.
I turn to see her staring intently at her daddy.
‘Of course you’ll help, baby bear,’ Jax says, grinning at her. ‘You’re both such good girls.’
Liah bobs her little head and then goes back to her coloring book, satisfied that she’s not been forgotten or overlooked. She’s so funny. I love her and Lola so much.
I already love their baby sister just as much. I can’t wait to meet her in a few months, and I know Jax can’t either. He’s always touching my belly and talking to his baby girl. One of my favorite things in the world is when he lays his head in my lap to talk to her. He’s made me cry so many times because he’s so sweet!
Jax rises to his feet, dropping a kiss on top of Lola’s head. He reaches out to me, running the back of his hand down my arm. His dimple peeks out at me, a sweet smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.
‘Can Gideon and Genesis come too?’ Lola asks Jax once he’s back at the stove.
Gideon and Genesis are Cyrus and Gwen’s twins. Cyrus made the grandest gesture of all and finally won Gwen’s forgiveness. They’ve been together ever since. Cyrus chased her around the country for a year while she launched her career. They actually live not far from us now. Gideon and Genesis will have a baby brother soon.
‘Sure,’ Jax says, shrugging like it doesn’t matter to him if they come. Lola loves to include her little cousins, and Jax is always happy to let her. He treats Cyrus and Gwen’s kids like he does his own. That’s always been his way though. He’s always been so supportive of my friendship of Gwen. If we want to have a girl’s night, he doesn’t complain. He and Cyrus take the kids and have play dates while we eat ice cream and gossip.
I expected things between him and Cyrus to be a little weird, but they never were. Cyrus told me that he always knew we were going to end up together one day. He feels badly that I worried for so long that he wouldn’t approve. When I reminded him that he stopped speaking to Chase Bennett after he caught Chase flirting with me, he told me that was because I was sixteen and Chase was twenty-six.
It pissed him off, both because I was so young and because he was dealing with his own guilt about his tangled feelings for Gwen. He was never inappropriate toward her or anything like that, but he struggled for a long time because she’s so much younger than he is. It caused them both a lot of grief and pain. I’m glad that’s over now and they’re finally happy together. They deserve happiness.
‘I’ll call Gwen,’ I promise Lola when she looks at me expectantly.
‘Yay!’ she cheers, making me smile.
‘Yay,’ Liah whispers.
‘I have something for you, rabbit,’ Jax says, nuzzling his face into my throat. We’re cuddled up on the couch, a movie playing on the TV. Neither of us is really watching it. I think we spent the entire last half of it making out like teenagers.
I love movie nights with him, specifically because they always lead to long make out sessions. I could kiss this man all day and never grow tired of it. Feeling his mouth on mine is as incredible today as it was the first time he kissed me. Better even because I know what I’m doing now.
‘Can I unwrap it now?’ I ask, lifting his shirt to slide my hands inside it. His abdomen clenches beneath my palms, making me laugh. I rake my nails down the ridges of his abdomen, which makes him growl. His body is as ripped now as ever. He gets up early just to exercise.
Sometimes, I get up early to watch him.
He usually ends up fucking me over the weight bench in the gym.
Yay for workouts.
‘It’s not my dick,’ he says with a chuckle, grabbing my hand when I try to slip it into his pants.
‘Well, that’s considerably less fun,’ I mumble, pouting. He’s kissing me and I’m pregnant. Of course I want to touch his dick. Actually, I want to ride it. But I’ll settle for touching it until he gets me upstairs to bed. The girls are both down for the night, but if one of them wakes up, I’d rather not have to explain to them why mommy is naked and bouncing on daddy’s lap.
‘Behave,’ he chuckles, biting my neck.
‘You like it when I misbehave,’ I remind him, twisting my wrist around, hoping he’ll let me go.
He doesn’t. Dang it.
‘What is it?’
‘Something you really want.’
‘You got me cake?’
‘You want cake?’
‘I always want cake.’
He chuckles at me again. ‘I’ll get you cake tomorrow, baby.’
‘Pinky promise?’
He hooks his pinky through mine, sealing the deal.
‘If it’s not cake, what is it?’ I ask, curious. He’s always surprising me with things. If I even look twice at something, he usually ends up buying it for me. It drives me crazy and makes me love him all at the same time. It’s probably a good thing we’re taking the girls to learn about charities this weekend. At the rate he spoils all of us, we could probably all use a dose of reality.
‘Your mom,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘Your mom, rabbit.’ He pushes my hair out of my face, his mocha eyes locking on mine. ‘You’ve been wanting her closer since we moved to Nashville. I talked to a construction company today. We’re building her a house on the property.’
I blink at him. ‘You’re serious?’
He nods.
‘Jax,’ I whisper, shocked. My mom is the only thing missing from our life. Even though she’s only two hours away, it feels farther. I hate that we only get to see her on weekends or when she’s able to take vacation from the hospital to come visit.
‘I talked to her about it last time she was here,’ he murmurs, tracing his finger along the curve of my cheek. ‘She’s retiring soon. It’s the perfect time for her to move closer.’
‘She agreed to let you build her a house?’
‘Fuck no.’ He arches a brow at me like I’m crazy, which makes me smile. My mom is perfectly content with her life the way it is. She gets so mad when Jax buys her expensive stuff. She always loves it, of course, but she gives him hell about it. ‘She had a fit about it. But then I reminded her how much you miss having her here and how much she’s missing with our kids and with Cyrus and his kids.’
‘You guilt tripped my mom into moving closer.’
‘No. I made a compelling argument for her to move closer,’ he says, smirking at me like he’s proud of himself.
‘You are so full of it,’ I say, burying my face in his chest to hide my laughter.
‘You’re missing the point here,’ he mutters. ‘Your mom is moving closer. She officially retires a month before Leilani is due. We’ll move her in here with us until the house is finished.’
Jax may be the only man on the planet who sounds pleased about the prospect of his mother-in-law moving in. But he loves her. He told me once that he learned to forgive his mom by watching mine love me. It reminded him that his mom loved him just as hard as mine loves me. He says whatever prompted her to hide the truth from him, she didn’t make the decision lightly. He wishes she had made a different decision, but he’s not angry about it.
‘I thought you wanted to name the baby Leilani?’
‘I changed my mind,’ he mutters. ‘I like Lyra.’
‘Lola, Liah, and Lyra,’ I say, testing it out. We didn’t really plan for Lola and Liah to both have short names that start with L, it just kind of happened that way. I like Lyra though. It fits well.
‘I like it,’ Jax says.
‘Me too.’ I smile at him, my heart growing a little bit bigger. ‘I can’t believe you guilt tripped my mom into moving here.’
‘When you goin’ to learn, rabbit?’ he asks, dipping his head so his lips meet mine. ‘I love you. There’s not a whole hell of a lot I won’t do if it makes you happy. You and our girls are my life. If you want your mom here, I’m getting her here.’
‘I love you too, my bossy pants man,’ I whisper against his lips, smiling so big my cheeks hurt. God, I love him so damn much. The day he put a ring on my finger, he told me no one would ever love me better than him. He’s right. No one could ever possibly love me the way this man does.
He bites my bottom lip and then smacks me on the ass. I squeal when he sits up suddenly and pulls me into his arms. I squeal again when he stands up, holding me to his chest like I’m a kid.
‘Where are we going?’ I cry, throwing my arms around his neck.
‘I’ve got something for you.’
‘If it’s not your dick this time, we aren’t friends anymore,’ I say, biting my lip to keep from laughing at him. He looks so damn happy. It looks good on him. No, it looks beautiful on him.
‘Oh, it’s definitely my cock, rabbit.’ His mocha eyes meet mine, shining bright with happiness and desire. ‘I hope you’re not tired. I plan on showing him to you a hell of a lot tonight.’
‘Yay,’ I whisper like our girls do when they get what they want.
His laughter rings out around us, stealing another little piece of my heart.
